


of hormones and tinfoil hats

by Arvensis5, plumadesatada



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alpha Tony Stark, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Sentinels & Guides, M/M, Mixed Media, Odin's A+ Parenting, Omega Verse, Sentinel Senses, Slow Build, Thor is a shitty bro, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony-centric, Warning: Loki, mentions of torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-08
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-04-30 15:25:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5168867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arvensis5/pseuds/Arvensis5, https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumadesatada/pseuds/plumadesatada
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki had stank of alpha. Had broadcasted alpha, somehow, even though he was a <i>fucking omega</i>.</p><p>And to think Thor had tried to tell them, had insisted that his brother Loki was different, somehow; that he’d always felt more a guide, whatever the hell that was. But he was an alien, and also he didn't smell, so no one paid him any mind. Who would have believed an alien who obviously didn’t know anything about alphas or omegas over their own noses? No one.</p><p>Tony decided, right then and there, that he would actually listen next time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	of hormones and tinfoil hats

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Horns of Mischief (Rinelin)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rinelin/gifts).



> Our artist for the Frostiron Bang was the amazing and talented [freakinmi](http://freakinmi.tumblr.com/). You can find her original art and manips post [here](http://freakinmi.tumblr.com/post/132793811209/i-had-to-pleasure-of-working-with-arvensis5-and). And seriously if you are into FrostIron and on Tumblr and not following her, what's wrong with you? Go follow her now, right now!
> 
> Want to also add a huge thanks/apology/thanks to [freakinmi](http://freakinmi.tumblr.com/), our artist and chief resident bullhorn motivator for the Frostiron Bang. She signed up for this story, then found out it was us two characters supposedly "writing" it even while Arvensis was in the middle of the two months of hell and Pluma was working her tail off to mod the Bang, and that not only were the two writers acting like recluses and doing a poor job of answering emails most of the time, the story itself wasn't even _done_ yet. And she never freaked out on us, never wavered, and was fantastic in helping all of our dreams and manips come true. (Seriously, that's amazing, because personally? I (Arven) would have freaked out.) 
> 
> All is well that ends well, but seriously. Thank you.

 

 

“Sir, I’ve turned off the arc reactor,” J.A.R.V.I.S. informed him, “but the device is already self-sustaining.”

 _Of course it couldn’t be that easy,_ Tony thought as he watched the Tesseract float untouched, held up by its own magnetic field. “Shut it down, Dr. Selvig,” he said through the loud-speaker, using the same calm, even tone a policeman might use when confronted with a madman waving a gun around.

“It’s too late!” Selvig shouted, the grin on his face exultant. “She can’t stop now. She wants to show us something!” His joyful expression turned to one of pure awe, and he breathed,  “A new universe.”

Tony rolled his eyes inside the suit. “Oookay.” _Did you leave any kool-aid for the rest of the class?_ he thought disbelievingly, remembering some of Selvig’s papers on astrophysics he’d read a few days ago. The man was brilliant… And then Loki had turned him into a zombie. _Thanks, Loki._ Well, if Selvig was not going to help, Tony would have to figure out a way to help himself. He shot at the Tesseract, thinking, _Maybe I can dislodge it?_

The Tesseract shot back, nearly swatting him out of the air.

When Tony managed to right himself, he spotted Loki on the balcony a few feet below, smirking like the asshole he was.  _Of course you can’t win_ ; _what is a mortal to a god?_ his eyes seemed to say, hooded with confidence in his superiority.

Narrowing his eyes, Tony murmured, “Plan B,” to J.A.R.V.I.S. and began the descent onto the landing platform.

J.A.R.V.I.S. tried to warn him that the Mark VII wasn’t ready yet, but Tony ignored him, too busy watching Loki watch him as the mechanical arms took his armor off.

They walked towards the penthouse together, almost like beasts circling each other, itching for a fight.

Loki moved with the poise of a stalking panther, his every movement screaming _predator_.  He owned the place, and he owned Tony, and everyone would _know_ it. It reminded Tony of the stereotypical alpha from rom-coms in the nineties; possessive, territorial, animalistic. He was trying so hard to exude dominance,  it almost looked like he was mocking Thor.

When Tony stepped inside, he was promptly buffeted by the stench of _alpha! my territory, mine! you are not welcome here!_ that permeated everything—in _his_ goddamn tower, no less. The miasma of pheromones was three, no, _four_ times stronger than the last time Tony had been in an enclosed space with Loki, back in the quinjet. Almost like Loki had sprayed _Eau de Alfa_ all over himself and Tony's penthouse.

It reeked so awfully that it actually made him nauseous despite the anger at Loki's sheer _daring_ burning in his chest. Managing not to break step or growl territorially, he carried on to the bar where the Mark VII homing bracelets waited, making a show of not paying attention to Loki.

If Loki wanted deference and obedience, then he would treat him like a toddler having a tantrum and ignore him.

Nonchalantly, even though it made his hackles rise, he turned his back to Loki—the slap in the face of body language between alphas—and poured himself a drink. His heart raced in his chest, but Thor had said that Loki didn’t actually have whatever enhanced senses alphas of their species possessed, so he probably couldn’t hear it, right? _Then again_ , Tony’s brain reminded him, _Thor also said Loki absolutely positively is not an alpha, and my nose begs to differ._

They exchanged quips, the human —ah, better make that _sentient being_ — version of barking and growling, and then Tony took over the conversation, stalling so J.A.R.V.I.S. had more time to finish the suit. He talked and talked and hoped Loki wouldn’t just snap and stab him right there instead of huffing and grinning knives like he’d been doing so far.

“…And _you_ , big fella,” he finished, his tone of voice actually _lecturing_ , “you’ve managed to piss off every single one of them.”

Smirking like he knew a joke Tony didn’t —and Tony was the punchline—, Loki said, “That was the plan,” and stalked closer.

“Not a great plan,” Tony responded in kind, coming out from behind the bar — and consequently closer to Loki. He'd never shied away from a pissing contest, and he wasn't about to start now. “When they come—"

Suddenly the air was saturated with the bone-aching scent of _omega! distress! must help!_ mixed in with Loki’s big-fucking-alpha scent _,_ and Tony froze for a millisecond.

Loki couldn’t _possibly_ have brought an omega here, to _his_ tower, could he? Oh, what was he thinking—of _course_ he had. As if being a would-be dictator and killing Coulson hadn't been enough, the first thing Loki had done upon landing on Earth was make that poor omega agent —Barton, was it?— his bitch. So what's to stop a big alpha conqueror from getting a replacement? Nothing, that's what.

Stomach churning, Tony swallowed hard to keep the bile down. Where was he? Oh, right, _When they come..._ “—and they _will_ ," he finished, "they’ll come for _you_.” And he’d make _damn_ sure of it.

"I have an army," Loki said matter-of-factly, like he was wondering why Tony was being so _dense_ and still thinking he and his _little pals_ had a chance. "Besides, how will your friends have time for me, when they’re so busy fighting _you_?" The alien took one last stride forward, blue eyes shining, and the glowing tip of scepter tapped Tony's arc reactor with a sharp _clink_.

Tony would have laughed at the confused, strangled look on the god’s face, except that, close as they were, all he could smell was the unmistakable stink of fear and mindless, all-encompassing _terror_ , and he thought, _What has Loki done to that poor omega?_

"This usually works," Loki murmured to himself, off in his own little bubble of depravity.

And then Tony's big fat alpha mouth had to go and crack a joke about _performance issues_ to an _alpha_. He always knew it’d get him killed one day, just hadn’t expected it to be from being thrown out the window of his _own goddamn tower_ , ninety-three stories from the ground.

* * *

 

**The End of a National Nightmare - 50 years since the Alpha Accountability Act of 1962.**

On April 21, 1962, President John F. Kennedy signed the historic Alpha Accountability Act into law, calling the day a “triumph for equality as huge as any battle ever won by alphas on any battlefield.” The law came less than a year after the St. Louis Riots, which began when three alphas were acquitted after violently attacking a young omega experiencing her first heat. The three alphas were acquitted under the now-repealed “Nature Acceptance Act,” which dates back to British rule and made acts of alphas against unbonded omegas in heat subject to the principle of coverture.

Kennedy introduced the Alpha Accountability Act (“AAA”) “with the outrage of St. Louis still fresh.”  The law came less than a year after omega activist Jean B. Burns launched the Omega Leadership Conference campaign based in Kansas City, Kansas, with the aim of pressuring Congress to pass legislation that provided for greater protection and rights for omegas.

“In St. Louis,” Burns said, “we saw a classic example of the disenfranchisement and degradation of omegas by a small minority, contrary to all research and historical commentary. The NAA [Nature Acceptance Act] has its roots in feudal Europe, when alphas dominated the political sphere, and has no place in modern American law.”

The Alpha Accountability Act of 1962 abolished the presumption of protection for alphas in criminal and civil cases nationwide. “The heart of the act is plain,” President Kennedy emphasized, “Wherever, by clear and objective standards, alphas have acted in violation of the rights and liberties of omegas, states are no longer permitted to presume or provide protection to alphas based on their nature.”

The law came after extensive research in the last 30 years has confirmed the long-held beliefs of many omega and beta activist groups that an alpha’s brain chemistry is not as bestial as presumed during the phrenology-based research campaigns of the early 1800s. Studies of alpha gorillas and other primate groups with similar pack structures have demonstrated that alphas are capable and culpable... (cont. on page 4)

* * *

“Alright. Hey. Alright. Good job, guys," Tony wheezed, his vision still black around the edges. So what if his voice sounded a little too high-pitched, right? For fuck's sake, he'd just starred in a one-man missile rodeo, nuked the mothership, saved the goddamn day, and died, actually _died._ His _heart_ had stopped. He had earned some leeway.

The relieved faces of Cap and Thor, hovering over him, seemed to agree with the sentiment.

"Let's just not come in tomorrow," Tony continued tiredly. "Let's just take a day.” _Fuck a day, how about a year?_ he thought, blinking up at his... team? Were they a team now? Whatever. “Have you ever tried shawarma? There's a shawarma joint about two blocks from here. I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it.”

Thor grinned, looking a whole lot like a lion about to take a nap after a good meal. He opened his mouth to speak, but Tony, remembering something, beat him to the punch.

"Hey," he said absently, blinking static out of his vision, "did anyone check on that omega Loki kidnapp—"

“I did.” Natasha’s voice echoed painfully loud in Tony's ear, drowning out everything else.

"Natalie!" Tony crooned. "The guys and I are going for shawarma, wanna come?"

"Sha—? No. Forget that, Stark." Apparently, she was anti-shawarma. "Get up here. Now. _You_ deal with this." Her voice held a slight hysterical edge to it.

Tony grimaced, rolling to his side before he let Rogers and Thor help him to his feet. “Keep cool, my babies, we’re on our way.”

“Just you, Stark,” Romanov ordered, and if Tony didn’t know better he would have said it sounded like she was _ordering_ him around. “Everyone else stay away.”

Tony shrugged and relayed the —okay, yes— orders to the other two, and flew up to his penthouse. Or _tried_ to, because apparently the nuke's EMP had stopped more than just the arc reactor. It had also fried his repulsors.

* * *

He had to walk the whole block to his tower and then take the elevator like a goddamn _peasant,_ but he finally made it.

"Okay, I’m here. Where’s the fire? What—” He coughed suddenly, eyes glazing over as he surveyed the damage and destruction to his penthouse floors, before the scent almost brought him to his knees. He shivered.  “What the actual fuck.”

There, on the floor in a Loki-sized indentation, was the god of mischief and lies, and _everything_ smelled like fear. Gut-wrenching, overpowering, overwhelming _fear_. It was all Tony could do to not rush across the penthouse, repulsors raised against whatever imaginary threat had created such an overwhelming biological response but—Wait.  It was _Loki_?

Tony paced slowly across the room, his footsteps mechanical and heavy in the circuit-fried suit. Even from ten feet away the god’s heartbeat was so loud that he thought his head might explode, the rhythm a painfully quick thumping noise against his already forming migraine. He took a step closer—

A painful-sounding keening noise rose from the bloodied lump in his floor.

—and quickly stepped back again. “Goddamn it, Romanov, what happened?” he spat. “Why is he—“

“Omega,” a voice rasped behind him, and Tony turned to see Bruce huddled against the far wall, his arms wrapped over his naked midsection like he could curl inward on himself and disappear. “He is—Loki—is an omega.”

Tony huffed. “That’s not possible, he was up here hissing and growling like any alpha I’ve ever seen, like—“

“The other guy—” Bruce gestured to the floor, pulling himself up to his knees. Thankfully, the tattered remnants of his pants hung in loose shredded fragments around his dangly bits, because Tony did not need any more trauma today.  “He smashed Bag of Cats around a bit and it was like a switch, Tony. I don’t—I usually don’t remember much, from when, you know,” he waved a dismissive hand over his body, “but I remember that.”

“Fuck,” Tony muttered, this time stepping away to grab a throw blanket from the sofa. He tossed the red fleece towards Bruce. “My bedroom’s up those stairs, to the right. Go grab some clothes, yeah?”

Banner nodded and padded off on shaky legs, and Tony turned back towards his bigger problem; what to do with the god currently redecorating his floor red with blood and bits. The stench was all-encompassing, so much fear and anguish that it actually caused a visceral reaction, making him nauseated and shaky at the same time. It was all he could do not to rush forward and cradle the omega in his arms. Somehow, he didn’t think that would go over well for anyone.

Then again, the distressed sounds coming from the bloodied smear of a god on his floor hadn’t changed as Tony moved around the room in a cautious arc.

“Iron Man, Thor wants to know whether Loki is detained,” Roger’s voice echoed in his ear. “Do you need us to come up?”

“No!” Romanov snapped, before Tony could even calculate a response. “No. The threat is neutralized, but keep Thor occupied.”

Tony swallowed. He’d taken two steps closer to try to see the god’s face, bloodied and bruised, and the spike in fear almost brought him to his knees even though he was breathing through his mouth. She was right. The fewer hammer-swinging alphas around for now, the better.

“Stark?” The Captain demanded, “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Tony managed; breathing in felt like it was going to kill him, like every time he opened his mouth and scented the air, his lungs wanted to shrivel up and die. “All fine. Take the big guy for shawarma, that should keep him busy.” Or something. Somebody that wasn't him should come up with a plan, because Tony was still reeling from the realization.

He probably should have figured it out back when he got into a scuffle with the God of Thunder for no discernable reason.

Really, Tony grimaced at the memory, could he have been any more of a gorilla then? All testosterone and alpha, challenging a man that the goddamn Vikings had worshipped, for fuck sake, as the epitome of what it meant to be an alpha, and all because... Because Thor had shown up and yanked his crazy adopted little brother out of the quinjet without even saying _excuse me_ , and, just like that, Tony’s nerves had been on fire, awake and aware and spoiling for a fight, even through the filtered air of the suit.

And he had ignored it, had chalked it up to Thor's... _Thorness_ just rubbing him the wrong way, what with his massive muscles and inability to back down, and his arrogant, cock-sure attitude. He’d mouthed off to Fabio, telling him not to take his stuff...

And boy if _that_ wasn’t the kicker. _His_ stuff, heh. Tony remembered the flashes, the momentary seconds during the fight with Thor where he knew he had to do something, _protect_ something but couldn’t figure out what or from what or how.

None of it had made a damn bit of sense up until this very second, because Loki had smelled like an alpha. Had _broadcasted_ alpha, somehow, even though _he was a fucking omega._

And to think Thor had tried to tell them. Back in the Helicarrier, he had insisted that his brother Loki was different, somehow, that he’d always felt more like, like a guide, whatever the hell that was. But they hadn't paid him any mind because he was a fucking _alien,_ and also he didn't smell. At all. Sure, people could smell the armor and whatever passed for laundry detergent in Viking Heaven on his cape, but other than that? He might as well not have been there, which was extremely unsettling. Meanwhile, Loki _stank_ of alpha. Who would have believed an alien who obviously didn’t know anything about alphas or omegas over their own noses? No one.

Blinking out of his thoughts, Tony hit the release on his armor and, ignoring J.A.R.V.I.S.’s urgent protests, stepped out onto the ruined floors clad only in his jeans and t-shirt.

“You sure that’s wise?” Bruce’s calm voice came from somewhere behind him.

He shrugged but, just in case, he pulled free one of the gauntlets and, remembering how the nuke had fried the suit's internal batteries, attached it to his arc reactor. “Got a better idea?”

“No.”

Right then. Tony took a cautious step forward, then two more steps as the pathetic whines coming from the fallen god pitched higher, until he was mere feet from Loki’s bloodied figure. He crouched down, his repulsor-clad arm extended carefully to the side, not aimed at the god but poised to fire if he needed to. He didn’t think it was possible, but the guy’s heart sounded like it would beat right out of chest; like a hummingbird, it was so fast.

Loki watched him with wide, fearful green eyes. There were fine tremors in the guy’s shoulders, his body trembling with terror or shock, though the pitifully small movements seemed to cause him even more pain.

“Not gonna hurt you,” Tony whispered around the lump in his throat. “You’re safe now.” It was bullshit, he knew, but he couldn’t help it. Fuck, he’d do anything, _anything_ to calm the guy down right now and get him to stop filling the room with the smell of distress so thick he could _taste_ it.

But, even to his own ears, telling the guy that, _yeah, sure, you led an alien invasion and tried to fuck Earth but you’re safe now because you smell like an anxiety attack on steroids..._ Yeah, that just sounded wrong.

He crept past the broken fragments of flooring, using his gauntleted hand to clear away a small space so he could kneel at the edge of the god-shaped crater where Loki lay, his arms and hands twitching minutely as he panted short, rapid breaths.

Loki swallowed thickly, his throat bobbing visibly. His eyes had far too much white visible for it to be healthy.

Tony moved his arm slowly, telegraphing his movements, edging closer and closer until his fingers rested on the metal-and-leather-clad shoulder, ignoring the omega’s pained whine and the sudden spike of terror that rattled down the his own spine.

A nice, comforting pat on the shoulder.

It didn’t help. The guy looked like he was two seconds from taking flight, his breaths were coming so quickly, fresh tears coursing down his pale, bruised cheeks. The keening noises had changed; they were higher pitched now, almost like whistles, as though Loki wasn’t even getting enough air in his lungs to properly cry out, couldn’t suck in a breath long enough to scream.

“Safe,” Tony repeated again, reaching out to run his fingertips across the taller man’s forehead, stroking a lock of dark hair, sticky with blood, away from the guy’s face. “I mean it, not gonna hurt you.”

When his fingers moved away, the god’s eyes were closed and his breaths had slowly begun to even out.

 _Finally_ , Tony thought, letting a shaky exhale cross his lips. Loki had finally fallen unconscious.

And then he realized that Loki's scent had vanished completely.

* * *

 

 

**A two-year double-blind study on the effects of imipramine on α-natured patients suffering from repeated exposure to mimicyne gas.**

Daniel C Ritchie, PhD, Carl J Cattran MD, Richard C Cardella PhD, and Susan M Helgeland MD

**Abstract**

Repeated exposure of α-natured combatants to mimicyne gas, known in military circles as "Ω-gas" or “panic gas”, causes similar symptoms as gross stress reaction (GSR) seen in non-natured combatants (Eberlein, 1947), to wit: hypersensitivity, elevated adrenal response that persists long after the event that triggered it, paranoia, insomnia, depression, anxiety, and antisocial behavior. As treatment with imipramine on post-combatants suffering from GSR has been shown to effectively alleviate the symptoms (Braunwald et al, 1949), we hypothesized that treatment of α-natured patients may see a similar benefit.

A prospective randomized trial was carried out on 71 confirmed symptomatic α-natured patients. The treatment group (36 patients) received daily oral dose of 75 mg in 3-4 divided doses in the first week, 95 mg daily during the second week, 115 mg daily for the third week, and then 135 mg daily for the remainder of the two year period. The control group (35 patients) received placebo pills. Participants of both groups were required to attend biweekly examination session for follow-up and to fill in a survey measuring and quantifying ninety-five subjective points regarding the participant’s quality of life during these sessions.

There was probable increase in life quality scores slightly in favor of the group receiving drug therapy, 22 points increase and 15 points increase in the treated and control groups, respectively. Increased suicidality occurred more frequently in the treatment group, 5 cases versus 2. Only 3 patients (4.2 percent), two from the control group and one from the treatment group,  failed to meet for regular examinations.

We can conclude this treatment is ineffective compared to placebo in altering the natural progression of psychiatric symptoms repeated exposure to mimicyne in α-natured patients.

**_— American Journal of Psychiatry, June issue , 1954_**

* * *

“So, Doc, what’s the verdict?” Tony asked Bruce the second he stepped into the living room, patting the spot beside him on the sofa.

Bruce sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “I’m really not that kind of doctor, Tony,” he said tiredly, but he sat next to him anyway, on the edge of the seat.

“Tomayto, tomahto,” Tony said dismissively, thrusting a glass with two fingers of amber liquid and a ball of ice inside at his new friend. “Here, on the house.”

Blinking, Bruce took it automatically and then stared like he’d never seen anything like it before. “Uh, I don’t—I don’t drink.” His eyes didn’t quite meet Tony’s, but his tone of voice was vaguely accusatory, as if out of anyone else he’d ever met he expected Tony to remember that mixing Bruce and alcohol was a bad idea.

The lack of faith would have felt insulting if they had known each other for more than four days. As it was, Tony merely clarified, “It’s apple juice,” and clinked their glasses together. His own _did_ contain perfectly good scotch, and he took a sip immediately afterwards. _Tastes like home_ , he thought, a small smile on his face, before turning to look at Bruce again. “So. Loki. Spill.”

The doctor swirled the ice in the glass, juice sloshing around. “Uh, he’s stable.” He raised the glass to his mouth and sniffed it before drinking a drop of it. “Huh,” he grunted, maybe surprised that Tony hadn’t lied, before taking a larger sip. He licked his lips afterwards, still tense and hunched, like he didn’t feel at home.

Then again, Tony didn’t quite feel home either, seeing how the room was pretty impersonal. He had commandeered one of the residential floors for himself and the rest of the Avengers to stay in until they got the Loki situation sorted, though Romanov and Barton had already decided to return to SHIELD headquarters—or wherever they lived while they weren’t being useful little pawns.

So far, only Thor and Banner had decided to stay, one to keep an eye on Loki and the Tesseract and the other because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. This was fantastic on two accounts: firstly, the resident god of thunder and his immovable hammer would be on hand in case Loki needed (more) subduing, rather than letting Bruce’s alter-ego redecorate yet another floor of his tower; secondly, Tony had no patience to deal with doctors, even those he’d made Pepper hire to keep on retainer for Stark Tower employees and Iron Man-related snafus, and the good Doctor Banner spoke their language.

Captain America was still on the fence, though Tony personally thought that the choice between living in the lap of luxury completely for free and returning to the cold, small, cheap-ass apartment that SHIELD had reluctantly rented for him was a no-brainer. Maybe spending seventy years communing with an iceberg had damaged his synapses, or his nineteen-forties’ morals didn’t allow him to sleep in somebody else’s house unless he’d wined and dined them first. Or maybe he just didn’t like Tony.

Tony kicked his shoes off and propped his feet on the coffee table, relaxing into the couch. The memory of Loki’s pale, bloody face and unfocused eyes flashed through his mind and left a bitter aftertaste. “So. Broken bones? Punctured lungs? Hangnail? Come on buddy, give me the 411.”

"You seem... awfully concerned," Bruce said, tongue in cheek, his eyes crinkling a little at the corners.

"Who, me?" Tony raised his eyebrow and laughed it off. It's not like he liked Loki or anything. "Of course I'm concerned. He's living under my roof and eating my food—well, presumably he will, once he wakes up, provided he can eat human food," he finished meekly, running out of breath. He cleared his throat and finished his scotch.  “Can he eat human food? Oh god, do I need to go buy a honey farm? Mead? Nectar?”

Bruce gave him a lopsided smile. "Judging by how Thor eats, he'll have no problems. And I think being fed through a tube probably counts as 'eating your food'."

"See? Eating my Ensure." Tony shrugged like it was no big deal. No bee factory needed, after all. And it wasn't a big deal. It was simply an alpha taking care of an omega in need. Human Nature 101. Right. Totally normal. _Totally_.

The humor faded from Bruce's face. “There's broken… lots of things. Clavicle, ribs, fingers, a skull fracture… and a fibula, I think, but that was just a fissure. They told me setting his ribs took five of them pulling at the same time.” He paused to let that sink in. “He’s malnourished. _Very_ malnourished. And severely dehydrated. They have him on an IV, as well as the feeding tube.” His brow pinched, the set of his jaw bitter. “Apparently they had to use a nail gun to get the IV needle into his arm.”

Right. Super-dense alien. Cool. Not at all freaky. Then again, having five doctors playing lego with your bones and firing needles into your flesh… Yeah. No.

“Wow,” Tony said finally. Those were a lot of injuries. The malnutrition didn't surprise him, though; really, Loki hadn’t looked too well, what with his sunken eyes, sallow skin, feverish glow and oily hair. The guy looked like shit warmed over, lit on fire, and then stomped on.

“But that’s not the worst part,” Bruce continued, swirling the ball of ice in his now otherwise empty glass, making a gentle _ping ping ping_ that was loud in the quiet room.

 _Okay, I’ll bite,_ Tony thought, feeling slightly light-headed. “What’s the worst part?”

Bruce’s eyes flickered briefly to him. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and finally said, “There’s evidence of torture. Lots of it.”

The _it_ might have referred to the evidence or to the torture, but Tony was past caring. Because one didn’t need to be a genius to do the math here. Malnutrition, dehydration, torture… Signals of distress, slipping in and out of attention. The cult-like speeches. The exaggerated alpha-like behavior, almost comical in its artifice. The frankly _stupid_ plan—

 _That was the plan,_ the memory of Loki's raspy voice echoed in his ears.

“Fuck,” Tony breathed, stunned. “This—this changes _everything_. This means—”

“Sir,” J.A.R.V.I.S. interrupted. “Thor has broken into the infirmary.”

Tony and Bruce looked at each other, eyes wide. "What?"

“He is attempting to disconnect the IV line and monitoring devices from Loki’s form," J.A.R.V.I.S. continued. "And he has the Tesseract, too."

Tony jumped to his feet. "Jarvis, prep the Mark IV."

Bruce jumped back, blinking at him. "What are you doing?! You can't fight him!"

"The hell I can't!" Tony growled, already going towards the elevator that would take him to the penthouse. "I _told_ that _asshole_ not to touch my stuff!"

* * *

 

 

 

 

_Excerpt from The O’Reilly Factor, with Bill O’Reilly  - Original Broadcast Date: April 10, 2012_

**O’Reilly ( _Host_ ):** I mean come on, the guy was supposedly an _omega_ before that freak science experiment in the 1940s. The 1940s! Let’s take a moment to remember what life was like back then for natured individuals. Alphas— and I’m not saying this as an alpha, I’m _not_ , but alphas back then were different. _Better_. Not like today, pushed aside and told to control their reactions or else, when you have omegas all slutting about letting their own pheromones run wild… And that’s my problem with him. He’s just another symbol of how this country is in decline.

 **Colmes ( _Guest Commentator_ ): **Wait, you have a problem with Captain America because he’s _not_ α-natured?

 **O’Reilly:** Yes. Because if he’s not an alpha—excuse me, if he’s not ‘α-natured’, gotta be politically correct now or the naturists will come after me again, but if the supposedly great ‘Captain America’ isn’t a α-natured, then how can we trust him to defend this great nation against the threats to our borders?

 **Colmes:** That’s ridiculous. He was _trained_ to respond like an α-natured individual, we all know the history of the U.S. military natured-complex training initiatives.

 **Krauthammer ( _Guest Commentator_ ):** I wouldn’t expect a _liberal_ like you to understand. And it doesn’t change the fact that, in no other conflict in modern history did more α-natured individuals die for this great nation than in the second World War. Alpha-led units were statistically more successful.

 **Colmes:** Well that’s not _quite_ right. The Howling Commandos weren’t led by an alpha, and they were arguably the most decorated unit during the war, if you account for the number of high profile targets and the short time in which the unit operated. And part of why the Howling Commandos were so successful is because it was the _only_ elite group in the combined Allied forces that _didn’t_ fall for Hitler’s so-called mimicyne “Ω-gas" or, as it’s more widely known in military circles, panic gas.

 **O’Reilly:** I don’t care. Modern conflicts require a different approach. I believe that the American foreign policy is at its lowest, the weakest ebb, alright, since the World War II. Possibly you could debate about Jimmy Carter’s administration being worse, but I don’t think so. This is the lowest that it has been overseas. But you know what’s stunning? The Navy Seals who took out Osama - all alphas.

 **Krauthammer:** And you can bet none of them were told to hide behind that liberal-naturist ideology.

 **O’Reilly:**  And is anyone surprised? I’m not. The U.S. has a long history of relying on its _natural_ defenders, men like Roosevelt and Eisenhower and Smithson, men who _lived up_ to their nature. Men who believed in this great nation. And now I’m supposed to believe a beta who can’t even scent distress could lead a team of superpowered humans like the Avengers? I don’t buy that. As much as I can’t personally stand the guy, it was an _alpha_ whose guts and instincts saved New York. Tony Stark _saved_ the greatest city of this nation. And _that_ is my point.

_Copyright FOX NEWS © 2012. All rights reserved._

* * *

Tony paced outside the viewing window, three steps to the left, three to the right.

On the other side of the glass, a beat-up god was resting against more pillows than the genius could count. Someone had the forethought to tie him up, a thick metal band surrounding Loki’s free arm with enough slack that the guy could scratch his ass if, you know, his ass itched, but not much more.

How considerate.

Loki still looked like complete shit. His metal-and-leather dead rockstar look had been cut away, leaving the taller man bare but for the heavy bandaging wrapped around his ribcage, left shoulder and clavicle. His right arm was bound in a thin brace of velcro and metal, with foam and tape tucked neatly around several fingers. Worse still was the man’s skin —a mottled rainbow of various yellows and blues and violets and every color in between— and, god, the _scars_ crisscrossing his shoulders and stomach, in the few places not swaddled in white…

Frankly, Tony thought it was a goddamn miracle he’d not murdered someone in a misplaced bid to protect the purpled lump of flesh huddling under that thin sheet. Especially Thor.

 _Particularly_ Thor.

A pained groan sounded, and the engineer turned mid-stride.

A sudden waft of _omega! distress! help!_ reached his nose, even with the super-special tower filtration system that Tony had designed _himself_ , that supposedly filtered out 99.9% of all pheromones, not just omega or distress-based scents. That shouldn’t be possible, but every time Loki had regained consciousness, the same thing had happened. It’d taken four times the normal anti-anxiety o-medications to dispel the scent enough to make it bearable.

But damn if Tony’s nerves weren’t fried anyway.

“Loki?” Roger’s voice was clear and calm. He’d spoken to the chained alien in what Tony had started to think of as Roger’s ‘neutral American beef-cake' voice, registering neither as a command nor a plea. “We need to ask you a few questions.”

Loki’s eyes rolled from one side to the other until he found the Captain to the left side of his bed.  Bruce had said that whatever they were pumping into him now was just supposed to dull the edges, to remove the omega’s anxiety enough that he wouldn’t struggle and pop his ribs out of place again, but he still looked _so_ far gone, his face slack and expressionless.

It was crowded in the observation room, with Hill, Romanov and Barton off conversing like a pack of wolves on one side and Bruce hunkered down in the opposite corner, his shoulders so hunched that Tony could have sworn the guy had lost a few inches in height.

And then there was Thor, standing like a fucking Christmas tree right in front of the window, a perma-scowl etched across his face.

Tony resumed his pacing, too jacked to be able to keep still. He didn’t like this. Nope. All of the nope. It should be _him_ in there, talking to the bag-of-cats space alien, but no one had wanted an alpha in the same room as a tied up, injured and terrified apparently-omega.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” Rogers asked again, this time edging a hint of respect into his tone. “We need to know about your allies, the, uh, Chitauri?”

Rogers got to be in there with Loki because, even though he was built like a mountain, he was just so goddamn goody-two-shoes that everyone thought he’d be less scary for tall, dark, and terrified. And since Fury had agreed to let Loki stay under Tony's roof _if and only if_ SHIELD got to call the shots on interrogating the guy, Tony had been out-voted, in his own fucking tower no less.

The god’s jaw twitched minutely, the only sign that he’d heard the Captain. His mouth opened and closed a few times, then squeaked, “Not… not my allies.”

“If they were not your allies, why were you leading their forces in the attack?” Rogers asked.

The god choked on something between a laugh and a sob.

Steve at least had the decency to offer the water glass to Loki, aiming the protruding straw at his mouth.

Loki took several long sips before letting the straw fall out. “A puppetmaster is just as effective as a general, Captain, when it is an army of _monsters_ that one leads,” he said, his voice smoother, more confident. He almost sounded like that swaggering asshole Tony had met in the penthouse. _Almost._

It could only go downhill from there, Tony decided, because no matter what the god’s voice said, his scent disagreed. And as Rogers asked question after question, Loki’s smell and _fear_ became more pronounced, no matter how arrogant or cocky his answer.

Over the course of an hour, and between sips of water and a few breaks for the technicians to up his meds when the memories threatened to overwhelm him (and every alpha in smelling radius), the god’s wrecked voice detailed events far beyond what Tony had imagined. It wasn’t just _torture_ , there weren’t enough _words_ in the English language to sufficiently describe the atrocities committed against the man.

No _wonder_ he’d gone into distress.

Tony pressed his forehead against the glass, ignoring the nasty look Hill threw in his direction. He didn’t care if he rattled the glass, didn’t care if Loki figured out that the pretty little mirror across the room was actually not a mirror after all. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to act, to do _something_ , to stop this charade. To charge in and _protect_ , shove Rogers away and barricade himself and crazy-pants somewhere safe. Preferably isolated. And with lots and lots of padded walls and soft surfaces. He only managed to control himself because he knew it was the _last_ thing Loki needed.

And Rogers, too, had been growing paler by the minute, until even he reached his limit. He stood suddenly, right in the middle of Loki’s muttering about how they tried to beat the _omega_ out of him, patriotic hands gripped in tight fists, and loudly proclaimed that Loki was _never_ going back there.

* * *

Loki had drifted off shortly after Roger’s declaration, the exhaustion clear across his features. Or maybe it was the drugs. Either way, one moment he’d been trying to explain where in the fuck the Chitauri had originated from, and the next he was drooling on his pillow.

It was absolutely, most definitely, _not_ sort of adorable. At all. Nope.

And Tony absolutely, most definitely, did _not_ ask J.A.R.V.I.S. to make sure no one else could enter Loki’s suite while the team retired to a nearby conference room.

Because that would be weird. Protective, or something. As if Tony couldn’t control his impulses in the face of that much pheromone, like some sort of animal. Which was patently ridiculous. Completely insane.

Of course.

“I shall return him to Asgard,” Thor proclaimed the moment Stark stepped into the conference room.

“No,” Tony said on impulse, surprised when a few others chorused his response as well. He thought he’d heard even Clint chime in. He turned his back to Thor, purposefully ignoring him as he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“It makes sense, Stark,” Rogers tried to reason. The man sounded like he was moments from catching the next plane back to the arctic. He was still a little pale, except for two bright pink splotches high on his cheeks.  “They probably can treat his injuries better, too. I mean… Aliens? Right?”

“Don’t care,” Tony slurped his coffee, relishing in how it scalded the roof of his mouth. “He stays.”

“Let’s not be hasty,” Hill said.

“Who’s being hasty?” Tony protested. He pointed a finger at Thor. “Point Break, didn’t you say he _jumped_ off that magic bridge back in Candyland? And now it turns out he’s the brainwashed torture victim of some big bad alien bully?" He let that hang in there, sinking in. "I’m just saying the guy’s been through enough. Doesn’t seem right to ship him back right away.”

“He _fell_!” Thor protested. “And if anything, he owes _me_ an apology for abandoning us! I thought him _dead_.”

“Oh, that’s rich,” Tony scoffed, "blame the omega pushed to suicide. Why the hell not?"

Thor scoffed. “Omega!”

“Has anyone maybe considered, oh, I don’t know, actually asking _Loki_?” Bruce chimed in, wiping his glasses on the edge of his button-down, a gesture that Tony was quickly coming to realize was the man’s equivalent of a nervous tell. “I mean, we have at least agreed that he was not acting rationally, yes? Should we at least ask _him_ what he wants?”

“There is no use in asking Loki.” Thor shook his head, huffing like he couldn't quite believe how naive the mortals were. “He is a natural manipulator, it’s his nature. If he fell in with the Mad Titan as he claims, it was of his own doing. And now he has much to atone for. He shall meet with Asgardian justice.” He said this last bit like it was a _good_ thing.

“See? _See_?” Tony threw his hands in the air, “Thor’s talking about putting a _torture victim_ on trial! What are you going to do, lock him up for being _tortured_?”

“Nay, Man of Iron. Loki was not tortured.” Thor laughed mockingly. “ You do not actually _believe_ him, do you?”

“Uh. Yeah?”

Thor laughed again, and Tony wondered about the physics of punching a superdense alien god without his suit. Better not to risk it, a broken hand was not fun.

“He’s manipulating you! You _puny_ mortals—”

“Hey now—” Rogers protested.

“He’s just using you.” Thor shrugged his massive shoulders. “He’s good at manipulations of the mind, ask anyone on Asgard—”

“You can’t make up those scars, Thor. Or that scent.” Tony growled, feeling the hair on the back of his neck rise.

The Asgardian’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What scent?”

* * *

**To:** Director Nicholas Fury

 **From:  **Jemma Simmons, PhD, Bio-chem Research Division

 **Re:  **Observations on Xenobiological Differences Regarding Subject L - Preliminary Report.

L[blacked out] appears to be a male in his late twenties of extraterrestrial origins.  He presents as an Ω-natured individual in scent, pheromones, and recent behavior, but claims to not be familiar with natures. L[blacked out]’s brother, whose characteristics and biochemistry have not been analyzed, confirms the lack of nature and, based on observational reports from Agents Romanoff and Barton, is indeed unable to scent L[blacked out]’s pheromones or distress scent.

The purpose of this report is to examine the astro-xeno-biological markers present in L[blacked out]’s test results and hypothesize as to the origins of L[blacked out]’s natured characteristics. However, information is incomplete and inconclusive at this time. Most notably, the key markers one would expect to find within a natured individual’s bloodstream are not present in L[blacked out], despite his presentation. It is unclear at this time whether the markers are coded differently due to L[blacked out]’s non-DNA-RNA-20 structure or whether L[blacked out]’s mutations that present as Ω-natured tendencies are caused by another genetic formation.

Recommend further study of L[blacked out] or his brother (if cooperative) to determine whether the baselines observed within L[blacked out]’s bloodwork and test results are mimicked and contrast those baselines with Earth-standard natures and blood typologies.

* * *

If he stared at the scotch glass any longer, Tony was relatively certain it would either refill itself or spontaneously combust. One or the other. Because clearly that was the sort of day he’d had.

Thor’s oh-so-innocent confusion about not smelling his little brother’s distress signals had thrown SHIELD’s scientists into a tizzy. Tony had never seen Agent Hill whip out her phone so quickly; he had thought for a second the thing would break from the whiplash.

And then there were ten more supposedly world-class experts on xenobiology suddenly in _his_ tower, breathing _his_ recycled and pheromone-free processed air, eating _his_ food, bothering _his_ distressed alien—

Wait, wait. Shit. _His_?

Tony reached for the scotch. There needed to be more in his glass, like five minutes ago. He threw the first glass back, and poured a second. Third. Whatever.

"His" distressed alien was sleeping, finally.

As if it wasn’t bad enough scenting Loki even with IV drugs regulating his stress responses, adding a few extra, caffeinated, and over-eager SHIELD scientists certainly hadn’t helped calm him down. After the latest battery of tests and blood samples, all they could tell him was that Loki, even though he smelled like an omega to humans, didn’t react like one. Which left them wondering _what_ Loki was; if it smells like a duck and it acts like a duck, but it's not a duck...

It made for a very confusing, annoying afternoon.

He pinched the bridge of his nose,  feeling the pressure stretch and burn behind his eyes. In another five or six tumblers of scotch, he might forget the wide-eyed stare of the god, pale and trembling as yet another vial of blood was extracted from the clear tube in his arm. And those impossibly green eyes, staring at the mirror — almost _through_ the mirror...

It was all Tony could do not to rip that door off its hinges and order everyone the _fuck_ out of his tower. He would have, too, if Bruce’s iron grip on his elbow had faltered. But it hadn’t, and he settled for watching crazy-pants like a hawk, until the SHIELD scientists had what they came for and vamoosed the hell out of there.

And _then_ Thor had started on again about taking Loki back to Asgard, and that, well. Maybe Tony shouldn’t have asked about Asgardian mating habits. That had ended poorly.

So now Tony had to repair another few walls and ceilings with Mjolnir-sized holes on the med-evac floor, as well as figure out how to keep Snow White away from the evil stepbrother. Maybe he should delegate.

“Jarvis, call Pepper,” he said, swiping one hand across his eyes. She should still be awake, over on the west coast.

Pepper answered after only two rings. “Tony? What’s wrong? What happened?” Her concern came loud and clear in the authoritative tone.

“Why does something have to be wrong? I can’t just call to say hello?”

“You could,” Pepper conceded. “But you don’t.”

“Sunshine of my life, my Pepper, my alpha of alphas, my golden—”

“What do you want, Tony?” Pepper said with a mix of amusement and exasperation.

He inhaled sharply, pretending to be hurt. Hurt, I tell you! “Why do you always say that?”

“Uh huh. Is this about buying that burger joint, because I’ve already told you—”

“I need a Triple A exemption and a Section 135 protection order.” Tony said, letting his voice drop an octave. “For Loki.”

There was a long pause on the line, followed by a deadpan, “You can’t be serious.”

“I don’t sound serious, Pep?" Tony asked, starting to get annoyed. "I used my big boy voice and everything. Let me try again—”

“You just used _the voice_ on me, Tony Stark. You know that doesn’t work on me. I’m immune.”

“Look. This is how it’s gotta be,” Tony rapped his fingers on the table, switching hands to hold the scotch tumbler. “I can’t explain it, I just, I have a... Let’s call it a thing. Can you get my lawyers on this thing, or not?”

“I can’t believe I’m even saying this. Why do I have to say this?” The line went quiet again as if Pepper was hoping he'd come to his senses, and then she hissed out, “He _literally_ tried to invade Earth. And you want to file a Triple A exemption?”

“And Section 135—”

“Do I even _want_ to know what that is?” Pepper grumbled. He could hear her typing in the background, probably googling New York law.

“Pepper—” Tony whined.

“Wow. Did you just try to _whine_ in the voice? Are you five? You know what, don’t answer that.”

Tony grinned. “Thanks Pep. And really, you know I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

There was more typing on Pepper's side, and then it cut off. She drew breath sharply. “Section 135 is very specific, Tony. You better be certain." She sighed. "SI won’t survive _this_  bad of a publicity, if you’re wrong.”

“I’m not wrong,” Tony said, though whether to reassure her or himself, he didn't know.

“You say that, but I do not think it means what you think it means.”

“Did you just sass me by quoting _Princess Bride_?” Tony chortled. “Why aren’t we bonded? Why can’t that be a thing?”

“Goodbye Tony.”

“Later, Iñigo. And thanks.”

* * *

**NY Penal Law §135.45 Custodial Interference in the second degree.**

A person is guilty of custodial interference in the second degree when: (a) Being a relative of a child less than 16 years old, intending to hold such child permanently or for a protracted period, and knowing that he has no legal right to do so, he takes or entices such child from his lawful custodian; or (b) Knowing that he has no legal right to do so, he takes or entices from lawful custody any incompetent person or other person entrusted by authority of law or nature to the custody of another person or institution, including attempting to remove an individual from the lawful custody or protection of an α-natured individual.  
  
It shall be an affirmative defense for α-natured individuals to a prosecution under subdivision two of this section that the victim is a natured individual exhibiting signs or symptoms of distress or that the taking was necessary in an emergency to protect the victim, regardless of nature type, because he has been subjected to or threatened with mistreatment or abuse.

**NY Penal Law §260.24 Endangering the welfare of an incompetent, physically disabled, or natured person in the first degree.**

A person is guilty of endangering the welfare of an incompetent, physically disabled, or natured person in the first degree when he knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical, mental, or moral welfare of a person who is unable to care for or protect him or herself because of a physical disability, mental disease or defect, or natured response.

[ **Underneath the text, in a post-it note:** Tony, Hammersmith & Foley sent this over. See highlighted text. Can you prove it? - Potts.} 

* * *

He slipped Pepper’s note in his back pocket before entering the observation room. Bruce had already taken up his normal chair, and he and Rogers were talking quietly off to one side. Hill was nowhere to be seen, but Stark noticed that Romanov had shown up, after all, without her ever-present omega archer shadowing her.

Thor ignored him as he strolled in, the thunderer pointedly _not_ looking at the patched-up plaster hole in the ceiling.

Roger’s eyes narrowed as Tony paced across the room. “Stark. Why are you early?”

“What, I can’t be early?” Tony protested. “Maybe I just needed a cup of coffee, ever think about that.”

“You already _have_ a cup of coffee.” Bruce said, pointing to the mug Tony was carrying.

“Now you’re just being mean,” Tony paced towards the coffee pot. “Besides, my mug’s empty.” He put his back towards the room as he poured himself a cup, adding one sugar and stirring three quick twists. “Any news?”

“SHIELD has agreed to treat him as an omega, for now.” Bruce said. He was wiping his glasses again, and Tony’s stomach turned.  “He’s going to be released from medical this afternoon.”

“And then we shall return to Asgard,” Thor proclaimed.

“Uh huh,” Tony huffed, seating himself beside Bruce. _Keep believing that._

Before he could retort back, the door opened and Fury marched in with Agent Hill close on his heels. Eye-patch looked like he’d definitely seen better days.

“Stark,” Fury growled, “You better have an explanation for this.”

“Who, me?” Tony smiled innocently. “What did I do this time?”

“A Section 135 and Triple A exemption?” Fury growled, all authority and _alpha_ in his anger. “Really?”

Stark grinned. “Sorry not sorry.”

“This sort of stunt is _exactly_ why I didn’t want you on this team, you—”

“What’s a Section 135?” Rogers interrupted.

Banner crossed his arms. “It means Tony has filed for legal custody of a distressed omega. Legally, if Loki agrees, SHIELD cannot touch him.”

“You can do that?” Steve asked, at the same time Thor rumbled “Unacceptable!”

“Sorry, Point Break,” Tony flexed his wrist, feeling for the suit bracelet against his pulse point, just in case. “We have something on Earth called personal autonomy.”

“Has anyone actually even _asked_ Loki yet?” Bruce interjected.

“Good point,” Tony chirped. “Let’s go!”

“Not you,” Romanov said, and like that she had Tony’s free arm pinned to the small of his back. Damn, for a beta she was _scary_ sometimes. “Rogers. Go tell Loki we’re going to release him to Thor’s custody, so he can return to Asgard.”

“Hey!” Tony twisted in her grip. “That’s not— ”

“Relax, Stark,” Romanov hissed, elbowing the billionaire’s ribs. “Let’s see how he reacts. If the idea truly distresses him, you’ll have your Section 135 proof.”

“And if it doesn’t,” Fury scowled, and nodded in Thor’s direction. “We’ll make a deal.”

“Oh, that’s low,” Bruce muttered. “Dirty pool.”

“I don’t remember there being rules in alien invasions,” Fury barked.

“Shh!” Tony snapped, twisting his arm out of Natasha’s grip. He rubbed his wrist as he stepped forward, straining to hear Rogers.

The captain seemed nervous as he greeted the weary, convalescent god. A few days in bed on an IV drop and steady meals had done the taller man good; his eyes were brighter, cheeks less sunken, and his pale complexion had taken on a slightly more rosy hue. But the bruises and cuts were still purpled blemishes across his face and chest, and his torso and shoulder were still a swaddled mess of bandages and braces protecting bones and ligaments.

“Loki,” Rogers smiled.

Tony grimaced. The blond man had a _thing_ for smiling when he was about to say something unpleasant. “I hear you are recovered enough to leave medical, maybe get that IV out,” Rogers gestured to the clear tube in the god’s arm. “I’d like to discuss what happens next. Your brother—”

“He is _not_ my brother—” Loki spat forcefully, breaking off in a pained wince, his free arm rising to cradle his ribs.

“Thor,” Rogers said pointedly, “wants you to return with him to Asgard. SHIELD has agreed—”

“Why?” Loki snapped. “So _Odin_ can dispose of me, again? So Tha—” The god’s mouth closed with an audible click, biting his lip. “Oh. I see. Midgard would prefer to shove me back to my _prior_ captors...”

And there it was.

Unbridled distress, so potent even through the cocktail of anti-anxiety meds already floating around in his system, that Tony felt it shatter through his spine; a hot, wet pain so fierce and bright that his knees grew weak. He heard a quiet gasp beside him, and just like that, Tony was on his feet, shoving past Natasha and Bruce and twisting through the door.  He vaguely heard Thor’s shout, something guttural and fierce and just _wrong_ , not _alpha_ , irrelevant.

He couldn’t remember what he’d shouted at J.A.R.V.I.S., but the door opened before him, bringing him closer and closer to the hot scent of _fear_ , anger and something more. Something brittle and sour at the back of his mind, a sense of hurt, of _betrayal_ so strong—

And then he was next to Loki, hackles raised and actually _growling_ at Captain America.  He barely remembered not to throw a punch, but it wasn't necessary.

Rogers raised his hands in surrender, those wide, innocent blue eyes almost reflecting some instinctual, pathological emotion. Not fear, no. Tony knew Roger’s backstory, even as a five-foot-nothing omega he’d taken on alpha bullies in the 30s. No, it was something else. Something edged with respect, if not understanding.

He didn’t care. He turned his back on Rogers, taking two careful paces to the now-trembling god.

Loki looked proud, haughty almost, as he raised his chin as Tony neared, as though he expected Tony to strike out at him. The thought made Tony sick, that the god could look so confident when every pore, every inch of the trickster smelled of anguish and fright. His scent was overbearing, this close; it was a bit like suffocating from breathing in too much oxygen.

“Loki,” Tony wrapped his mouth around the god’s name, taking care to enunciate.

A thin bead of sweat drip down the trickster god’s forehead. “Stark,” he snorted. “Come to appeal to my humanity again?”

Tony grinned uneasily. “No, threaten. Remember?” he cleared his throat, glancing once at the mirrored window. “Listen, it’s complicated. I mean, there are legal reasons and rights and no one is going to force you, not on this. But you actually have a choice, about going back to Asgard or not, and—”

“Oh, a _choice_?” Loki mocked, rolling his eyes. If anything, the god’s scent seemed to amplify, filling every nook and cranny of the room. “A cell on Asgard or a cell on Midgard. How _exciting_.”

“No,” Tony edged forward, ignoring the way the taller man seemed to shrink inward, hunching around his injured arm. “Uh. I don’t know how this whole thing works on Asgard, and Thor seems less than helpful—”

Loki snorted. _No kidding_ , he seemed to be thinking.

“Yeah, okay. Maybe that’s the understatement of the century,” Tony conceded, daring to smile. “But you can stay. Stay _here_ , I mean. Not with SHIELD. Stay in the tower." He looked Loki right in the eyes, hoping the god could see the truth as well as he saw lies. "Look, I said you were safe, remember?”

“Safe,” Loki spat, his chin tipping upward in a confident display of nerve that was wrong, all _wrong_ in contrast with his scent. Like burning embers floating across a flooded plane.

Tony lifted his hand, broadcasting his slow movements as he reached forward, careful to avoid the IV line and wires connecting the god to the machinery, until his hand rested gently against the taller man’s wrist. To his untrained eye, Loki was honestly starting to look a little wrinkled around the edges, like the hormones had overtaxed his system and he’d spent so long in distress that his phero-olfactory system was compromised. The genius could almost see the god shutting down; the shuddering way his chest heaved in hiccuped movements; the way his eyes darted from side to side, as though at any moment another threat would burst out from the sterile white walls.

The arrogant display would have worked —hell, it probably _had_ fooled the betas watching— but with every gentle brush of Tony’s thumb against Loki’s wrist, the god relaxed, letting go of his fear, losing the bordering-on-hysteria smell to his scent.

“Safe,” Tony repeated. “I mean it.” 

* * *

_Transcript from CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 - March 31, 2012_

**Cooper** : “Tonight on 360, a follow up on a controversial center for teens and other α-natured individuals with severe emotional, behavior, and developmental issues. The school is the Hellensburg Center in Canton, Massachusetts. Now the school is controversial because its students’ behavior is controlled with painful electric shocks. The school calls it aversive therapy for hard to control α-natured kids who are dangerous to themselves and others and haven’t been helped by anything else. But a recently released video that the school fought hard to keep secret has renewed calls to close the school. Joining me tonight are Nathan Bacchus, a research director at the Hellensburg Center, along with Kevin Pelfram, a neuroscientist and director of the Child Neuroscience and Nature Laboratory at Yale University. Good evening to you both.”

 **Bacchus** : “Good evening.”

 **Pelfram** : “Hello Anderson.”

 **Cooper:** “Just as a bit of background for our viewers, in a statement released by the school the Hellensburg Center defended its use of shock therapy, stating that, ‘Behavior modification techniques involving the use of aversive interventions, including skin shocks, are heavily regulated in Massachusetts by MA DDS and the Massachusetts Department of Early Education and Care.’ What the website doesn’t mention is that skin shocks have been banned in Massachusetts since last September. So any student enrolled _after_ September 2011 cannot be shocked under the new state guidelines. Of course, any student enrolled before September 2011 can still be shocked. So Kevin, describe what happens when a shock like this is administered to an α-natured individual.”

 **Pelfram:** “Sure. So from the point of the view of the experience being shocked, obviously it is painful, and that sets off a cascade of biological events, essentially an activation of the stress responses. That’s the type of response you feel if you narrowly escape a car accident, or in the case of an α-natured individual, are confronted by stress pheromones from an Ω-natured or a neutralized β-natured individual. A flight or fight response. And so that releases a set of stress hormones that we know are bad for the body, particularly for an α-natured individual.”

 **Cooper:** “Nathan, you’re a board-certified analyst for the center, you’ve also almost two hundred α-natured students that you oversee at the center. How do you justify aversive intervention therapy when prisoners aren’t shocked, when murderers aren’t shocked to control their behavior?

 **Bacchus:** “Well you have to remember this isn’t retribution. We’re not trying to get back at people for engaging in problem behaviors. What we’re trying to do is reduce their problem behaviors to near zero levels so they can learn additional skills and be free of psychotropic or olfactory-sensory reduction medications, and free of mechanical and physical restraint.”

 **Cooper:** “But with that logic, why not shock prisoners that are unruly? Society seems to view that as inhumane, why are α-natured teenagers any different?”

 **Bacchus:** “Well you know, what we are looking to do here is... When prisoners are removed from society because they are dangerous to others, and that’s the way our legal system works. But this is a different process here. What we’re trying to do is treat these individuals so they no longer require skin shock in many cases, or that they can discontinue other procedures to reduce or eliminate their α-natured impulses that are more dangerous or that have side effects that are worse. I mean, have you _seen_ α-natured individuals instinctively fighting one another? It is terrifying and completely unacceptable in modern society.”

 **Pelfram:** “Look, I’m not saying that α-natured instincts are not primitive at times, but what you’re talking about doing is reworking someone’s biology based on impulse control. It’s not that simple.”

 **Bacchus:** “But even you have to admit, Dr. Pelfram, that our success rate speaks for itself. Some of the most famous and successful α-natured individuals attended our school, even if for a short time. Tony Stark, for example.”

 **Cooper:** “Tony Stark. Interestingly, when our producers reached out to Mr. Stark for comment on this interview, his response was less than gracious. Let me read directly from the emails sent by Mr. Stark’s assistant. The first email reads,  'That hell-hole still exists? Really?'”

_[Sounds of Doctor Pelfram chuckling]_

**Cooper:** “Mr. Stark’s assistant then writes in a second email, sent a few hours later, that ‘the Hellensburg Center is a direct representation of the backlash against α-natured individuals in the 20th century. Education and conflict resolution are one thing; electrocuting a child exhibiting their first hormonal responses in an effort to _prevent_ those impulses, that _natural_ behavior for that particular child’s nature, _that_ is wrong. Which is why I’m happy to announce that, effective immediately, SI is now the controlling shareholder in the Hellensburg Center’s parent company, Natured Industries, Inc. Together with our partners and advisors, NI will revise the curricula at the Hellensburg Center with leading educators to teach modification of unhealthy impulses while placing an emphasis on embracing one’s nature.’ The email then concludes, noting that the following is a personal note from Mr. Stark himself, that ‘if that asshole Bacchus is still there, tell him he’s fired.’”

 **Bacchus** : “Uh.”

 **Cooper:** “We’ll be back, after the break, with several former students from the Hellensburg Center. And now a word from our sponsor, Stark Industries.”

_Copyright CNN © 2012. All rights reserved._

* * *

It was weird.

Okay, maybe "weird" was too mild. It was fucking strange. Completely, insanely, utterly strange. Tony had seen a lot of weird shit in his life, but watching the formerly evil (and still sort of prickly) alien god pad barefoot across the very floor that he’d been smashed into less than a week before? Weird.

After the man had been released from medical care —and thank fuck for Pepper and her quick work with the legal documents—, Loki had been moved into the spare room on the penthouse floor, with Bruce in the other guestroom next door, and Tony’s own room just down the hall. Rogers, Romanov, and Barton had taken up rooms on the floor below, at SHIELD’s —very persistent and _very_ annoying— insistence, because _apparently_ someone had to keep an eye on things, and it probably wouldn’t be the strangely territorial alpha billionaire with a thing for alien omegas. Not that J.A.R.V.I.S. wasn’t already doing a bang-up job of watching the guy already, but it was a small price to pay to appease Fury’s, well, fury over the Section 135.

Thor had agreeably fucked off to visit his little girlfriend, thank Tesla. Once Tony had challenged Rogers and stood growling at everyone else like a fucking rabid dog, Thor had suddenly remembered somewhere he wanted to be besides Stark Tower.

Strange. _Awesome_ , but strange.

But it was too early to really give a shit. Tony sipped his coffee, letting the bitter taste wash away the lingering scent on his tongue. The more acidic his morning  —okay, okay, early afternoon— coffee, the less he could smell the after-odor of Loki’s, well, _Lokiness_ , stinking up the place.

Bruce was no closer to understanding the differences between Human and Aesir biology, but it was clear that there were big differences. _Huge_ differences. Like, someone would probably win some fucking science prize when they figured them out, because what the actual fuck. Bruce had tried to explain it to Tony —something about how Loki’s brain didn’t light up in the right places when exposed to natured-related scents but, whenever his own scent was most powerful, the guy’s brain scans lit up like the Rockefeller Christmas tree—, but all Tony got was 'no phero-olfactory system'. _How?_ How did Loki have a scent at all? It was just _wrong_.

A small noise startled Tony, and he turned his neck sharply. A muscle in his shoulder twinged.

Loki stood at the doorway, arm still cradled in the dark blue sling Bruce had fitted him with a few days earlier, his lips pursed and glaring at Stark, as though the human had _personally_ offended him, and — _Shit_ , Tony winced— reeking of fear and uncertainty. And something else, lingering, something bitter that he’d smelled that day in the tower, when Hulk had plastered the god into the tile floor. _Pain_.

“Ow,” Tony muttered, rubbing at his neck. “Loki, don’t loiter in the doorway, it’s rude on Earth. You hungry? I can make you a sandwich. PT always used to make me hungry.”

The taller man didn’t respond, merely carrying on with the silent, creepy staring instead.

Tony exhaled a frustrated sound and he pushed himself to stand. He pulled together the ingredients for a turkey sandwich quickly, with a swipe of mayo and cranberry sauce, the secret ingredient. He assembled the meat and tomatoes between two slices of bread, before neatly trimming it into diagonal halves and scooping a handful of grapes onto the plate. Then he turned, and almost dropped the plate.

Loki had apparently teleported to the stool at the kitchen counter, because Tony sure as hell hadn't heard him moving. He was half-sitting with one foot poised on the ground, like he didn't feel at ease and wanted to be able to step away quickly if he had to. His glare hadn’t abated.

Tony reached across the counter to plop the plate of food before him. He tried to smile reassuringly, but the scent was a constant itch at the back of his mind and he had to watch himself so he wouldn't try to _cuddle_ the dark, scary asshole god. Because while his scent screamed for mercy, the god’s face looked like what Tony imagined Loki would look like in prison right before shanking someone.

This ridiculous urge to feed Loki? At first he'd assumed it was a natured-type thing going on in his head. But he’d quickly realized that _everyone_ was trying to feed the resident alien.

Bruce made him tea and chocolate-chip cookies, the scent of them baking almost powerful enough to override the pheromones of the room. _Almost._ Rogers had somehow decided that, as the early riser amongst the group, he should cook breakfast for everyone, and Tony had stumbled upstairs from his workshop at butt-fucking-o’clock in the morning to find Captain America flipping an omelet for their would-be alien overlord, said overlord perched uncomfortably at the kitchen table and looking like an insect caught under glass. Then he’d caught Natasha showing Loki how to roll some weird little pancake with cheese sauce inside one afternoon, and _that_ was scary, mostly because Loki’s distress scent was so overwhelming that Stark had hustled up from the lab to find out what happened, and because he’d not expected that the Black Widow would actually know how to cook _blini,_ all things considered. And don’t even get him started on Barton and the motherfucking oreos and milk thing.

But Barton, he knew, he could smell Loki; the archer was an omega. Bruce and Rogers, and he was fairly certain Natasha, too, were all betas; they were _supposed_ to be immune to Loki’s scent. And Loki, too, had slowly started smelling less and less of distress, though every so often something would happen and the ensuing stench would overwhelm even Tony’s own state-of-the-art filtration. (Like when the god’s physical therapy didn’t go well and something hurt more than he had expected as he worked to regain movement in that arm. Or whenever lightning flashed outside Stark Tower.)

Yet every time he turned around, someone was trying to feed the guy. Maybe it was just because Loki had looked so hollow when he’d first been released from medical; frail and empty, his thin frame so cowed compared to Thor or Rogers or even Tony’s own sculpted arms.

“Turkey sandwich,” Tony quipped, pointing at the dark-haired man’s untouched food as he reached for his empty coffee mug. “Did Rogers help with PT today? You smell—” he bit his lip; it wasn’t polite, nowadays, to mention an omega’s scent. “Uh. I mean. Is it going okay?”

Loki took a bite of the sandwich, sullen eyes not leaving Stark’s face as he ate.

“Ooookay then,” Tony sighed. He poured himself another cup of coffee. “Well. Great talk. Good, ah, job, on the, you know."

Loki's smell grew stronger, like just having Tony talking at him was giving him anxiety.

"I’m just gonna go now.” He retreated to the elevator without a backward glance, his coffee mug positioned just below his nose as he took small, quick sips, burning his tongue.

Because if he didn’t leave right that fucking second, he never would.

* * *

Tony had just soldered on a circuit switch when the hair on the back of his neck tickled, cold and faint across his hairline. When he looked up, he found a pair of brilliant green eyes staring at him from across the workshop, their owner a silent statue.

Knowing Loki didn't like the attention, he looked away and gestured to the grease-stained sofa. “More comfortable than standing,” he grunted, pulling the goggles back down over his eyes.

He didn’t have to be an alpha to tell the guy was surprised, his steps quiet and light as he moved to the couch catty-corner from Tony’s welding desk.

It was too quiet, and the eyes on his back were unnerving. So Tony started muttering the first thoughts that came to mind.

He talked about soldering the metal bits onto the board, how the green sections were delicate circuits of wired connections that carried messages from point A to point B like the synapses of the human brain. Then he wondered whether Loki’s biology was similar enough that the neurological pathways worked the same, which quickly segued into a discussion about popular earth sports after the god’s distress scent had spiked suddenly.

It was hours later, when Tony had finally run out of things to say, that the god’s voice echoed across the room.

“Why?” Loki demanded. There was an icy fury in his voice, incongruous with the nervous scent echoing through Tony’s nostrils.

Tony removed his goggles and looked at him. “Why what?”

“Why are you _doing_ this?” the god sputtered. “Why are you mortals so—why are you— _doing_ this?”

The engineer wiped his hands on a rag, before taking the few short steps to the grime-covered sofa. He couldn’t help but notice how the god’s scent ratcheted up a notch as he plopped down beside him, but then almost immediately dissipated when he reached out to wrap his fingers around the god’s wrist, just over Loki’s pulse.

It was dirty pool, grabbing onto an omega’s wrist like that. Like scratching a dog behind its ears. But Loki almost sagged into the touch, and the relief Tony felt as the overwhelming stench of fear and worry abated, well. It was worth it.

He gestured to Loki’s wrist with his eyes. “Is this okay? Do you mind? It’s just, it’s a little much. A bit Diane Sawyer-ish, you know?”

“No,” Loki muttered, “I don’t know. You can—” he cleared his throat. “You can keep your hand there. It feels—my thoughts are—less busy.”

“Huh,” Tony mused. “We should probably tell Bruce that, at some point. I didn’t realize this did something for you, too.”

Loki tensed beneath his fingers and Tony tugged on the god’s wrist, pulling him back into the couch cushions. “Relax, Buttercup. Bruce is here to help. Now. You want to know why we’re, uh, acting human?”

The god picked at a loose thread on the cushion. “Your Avengers… do you always _cook_ for your prisoners? And Barton made me eat—” Loki choked on a hysterical-sounding noise, “milk and _cookies_.”

“Well, to be fair, you did look like a half-starved rat the cat dragged in.” Tony smirked, enjoying the god’s glare peeking from behind a curtain of dark hair. “But you aren’t exactly my prisoner, remember?”

“Be serious, Stark. I’m residing in a room that passes for luxury on Midgard. Thor has, however temporarily, apparently surrendered his claim on behalf of Asgard. Even your authorities, your _SHIELD_ , has surrendered claim. Left me here.” Tony felt the god twitch, as though being left alone meant something more, before the muscles tensed beneath his fingers, Loki’s hand curling into a tight fist. “No one is _punishing_ me. _Why_? I killed your people, I brought an army—I don’t understand—don’t deserve—”

“You know what Bruce is looking for, right?” Tony interrupted, before the guy’s scent could overwhelm him again. “When you are hooked up to all those little plastic suction cups on your head during PT?”

“He said you mortals have, ah, _natures_." He said the word hesitantly, like he wasn't sure he was getting it right. "Asgard—does not have that.”

“You do.” Tony let his thumb run soothingly across the smooth flesh of Loki’s wrist, waiting for the god’s breathing to calm. “Thor said you were adopted. Do you think that’s why you are different? Than Thor, I mean?”

Loki’s shoulder shook, but he remained stubbornly silent.

“Alright. How about this,” Tony let his shoulders relax, feigning a conversational tone even as his grip shifted to hold the god’s wrist more firmly between his fingers. “You remember when I landed on the flight deck? And you were in my penthouse, talking like a crazy asshole on really, truly awesome drugs?” He couldn’t tell, but he was fairly certain that the twitch of Loki’s head was a nod rather than a spastic seizure. “There was a moment there, that, just for a second, you changed. You _switched_. You weren’t the psychopath opening up a portal on my building, you panicked—”

“I was weak,” Loki muttered, so quietly Tony almost missed it. “A Jotun coward.”

“You were _afraid_ ,” Tony corrected gently, tugging on the god’s wrist once. “And here on Earth, there are rules, when your actions don’t match your scent. There are people who can smell that fear.” Tony gave a small smile, bitter. “Most humans aren’t natured now; they're betas, like Steve and Bruce. Omegas are still statistically rare. One in every six or seven thousand humans born worldwide, fewer in some regions. But the Ω-natured allele is found in every population on Earth. Male or female. Doesn’t matter.”

“Get to the point, Stark,” the god growled. His wrist remained stubbornly still in Tony’s grasp.

“Yeah, yeah. And they say _I’m_ impatient. Anyway, even more rare than omegas are alphas.” Stark gave a self-depreciating laugh, like a bubble welled up uncomfortably behind the reactor in his chest. “Like, well. Me. I’m an alpha; α-natured. Whatever. Genetically, more similar to a Neanderthal than modern humans." He tried to keep the self-deprecation out of his voice. He didn't succeed. "Not really though, I mean, because that would be impossible. But the human genome is sort of fucked up. It’s just one tiny allele that makes the difference, that determines whether someone is α-natured or Ω-natured or neither.”

Tony fell silent.

He’d read the studies, of course. Howard had been goddamn _thrilled_ to find out his heir was an alpha, like it was some bonus selling point to the brass for why the military should keep on buying Stark Industries’ weapons. _Made by alphas, for alphas_ , he’d heard his old man say. And the so called ‘research’? A bunch of statistically inaccurate findings lumped together to make causal assumptions from very limited data. Alpha males, typically found in pseudo-military complex employment and police forces; quick to use force and threaten their opponents; short tempers, short fuses, mile-long libidos.

“Anyway, when you arrived,” Tony shrugged. “You smelled like an alpha. Acted like an old-school alpha, I suppose,” he chuckled, remembering. “Nobody postures like that anymore; there are _laws_ against that sort of thing now. But after, ah, the Hulk redecorated...”

Loki's scent flared, bright and paralyzing from this close.

Tony cringed. _Abort, abort!_ “Well, let’s just say that you smelled like you needed help. No matter what crap came out from your mouth." He lowered his voice. "Supposedly our alpha lizard brains go crazy if we’re not able to protect a distressed omega. I dunno.”

“What does this have to do with Thor?” Loki grumbled. His arm was trembling now, along with his shoulders.

Tony absently stroked the god’s wrist to the pad of his thumb and back. “Thor doesn’t smell,” he said simply. “He also gets weirdly twitchy whenever _you_ smell of distress, like he’s having his own private merry-go-round ride and can’t change the speed." He shrugged. "I think that’s why Barton suggested he go visit that girl he likes, you know? Because honestly, it was getting bad around here. Good for Bruce’s readouts, bad for my nerves.”

“So sorry my presence is _such_ an inconvenience,” Loki bristled.

Tony gave the god’s wrist a gentle squeeze. “Stop that,” he ordered, letting his tone drop ever so slightly.  “That’s not what I said. So what if you aren’t,” he waved a hand in a flourish, “whatever the hell he is. I don’t know how it works for you up in fairy land, but here on Earth, we have laws _protecting_ distressed omegas. Not much else has survived into the 20th century liberal-naturist reforms —honestly, that’s probably a good thing— but there is that, at least. And Bruce is trying to figure out why you smell like an omega to our noses. Trying to figure out how your biology interacts with human senses and olfactory responses, so we can keep the Section 135 in place. ”

“Section 135?” Loki’s sharp gaze met Stark’s own dark eyes. “The decree that prevented SHIELD from taking me away.”

“Yup,” Tony replied, a faint chuckle in his answer. “And damn, I wish I’d had thought to record the look on Fury’s face. If Bruce can prove your responses are Ω-natured

or equivalent, then your criminal record gets wiped on Earth. No court in this country, probably in the whole damn world, would prosecute a distressed omega showing signs of torture.” Tony shivered. "And there were enough alphas there that day from SHIELD, no way anyone could contest it. So you could stay here, er, I mean, here on Earth. If you want to, that is.”

“Oh,” Loki’s word was almost ethereal, a whispered gasp.

“C’mon,” Tony pushed to his feet, reluctantly pushing away from the comfortable seat. “Time for another Earth tradition. Ice cream after serious conversations.”

Tony didn’t let go of the taller man’s wrist as he tugged him towards the elevator. Loki didn't seem to mind.

* * *

**To:** Director Nicholas Fury

 **From:  **Agent Romanov

 **Re:  **Followup regarding Section 135

Sir,

Recommend revising plan of action regarding termination of Section 135 for the extraterrestrial known as Loki Odinson. Banner’s preliminary conclusions seem to support the natured indicators regarding Loki’s involvement in the invasion of New York. His evidence, including observational and readings relayed by Stark’s A.I., will demonstrate that Loki’s heart rate, metabolic systems, and general demeanor are soothed by the presence of an alpha. Namely, Stark. Olfactory responses are still as of yet unexplained, but consistent.

Banner’s initial conclusions are that Loki’s responses are telepathically conveyed rather than olfactory-nasal response based. These observations are limited, but theoretically rooted in Stark’s state-of-the-art filtration system. In short, he shouldn’t be able to overwhelm that system; _nothing_ should overwhelm that system, it’s the best one on the market for filtering out hormonal responses.

Consider whether Loki, if Section 135 is extended and asylum on Earth granted, may be a useful asset if such this purported skill could be channeled? Could his Ω-natured tendencies be used to sooth or subdue larger at-risk populations?

Also, sir, Barton would like to add that he’s fairly certain observing Loki following Stark around ‘like a lost puppy’ is deserving of hazard pay. Can’t say I really disagree, honestly... He has taken to wearing tinfoil hats when off-duty; he claims it helps dull the smell. He hasn't yet succeeded in getting me to wear one, which I suspect is his ulterior motive.

* * *

The lightning on an otherwise clear afternoon was all the warning Tony had before the balcony alarms blared and the sharp, pungent scent of Loki’s distress filled the tower.

“We’ll have to continue later, gentlemen,” Tony snapped, waving his fingers to cancel the videocall. His quick steps took him out of the workshop before the A.I. could even terminate the call, and he all but vibrated with tension as he bounded into the waiting elevator. “Jarvis, get me a suit ready. And call Bruce and Rogers up here.”

He found Loki and Thor playing cat-and-mouse in the penthouse living room, with Loki positioned so that the sunken sofa and coffee table were between him and Thor, his back to the door as though he’d intended to flee. And, just as Tony had expected, Loki’s hunched posture and terrible fear-scent contrasted sharply with the show he was putting on for the supposed god of thunder, if the enraged expression on Thor’s face was anything to go by.

Another flash of lightning echoed across the penthouse windows as Tony emerged from the elevator, waving subtly to J.A.R.V.I.S. to keep the waiting suit out of sight for now. “Hey there, Point Break!” he called, “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. You didn’t call? No, really, I mean, I thought you would maybe call before you stopped by.” He casually strolled towards Loki, letting his path cross between the two gods. His slightly sweaty palms came to rest on the soft leather backrest of his newly-delivered sofa.

“Friend Stark,” Thor growled, ignoring the jibe. “It has been almost four weeks Earth-time, and my brother—”

“ _Not_ your brother,” Loki growled somewhere behind Tony’s right shoulder.

“He _appears_ healed enough to travel now, if his wicked tongue is anything to gauge,” Thor spat. “It is time we return to Asgard. I grow impatient with your _rules_ , and my Jane says that legally you can’t keep him here if—”

“Wait. Hold up.” Tony lifted his hands in what he hoped was a placating manner on Asgard. Just where the fuck were Bruce and Cap anyway? _Stall, Stark, now_ , he told himself. “Is Jane a lawyer? Is she a medical doctor? Because last I checked, Lokes over here is still wearing that arm sling for a reason.”

“I do not see why that matters. My Jane is very intelligent and—”

“ _Your_ Jane!” Loki scoffed again.

“Not helping here, Princess,” Tony hissed.

“Enough!” Thor hefted his hammer, leveling it towards Tony, and fuck, he did _not_ want to see what that thing could do to him _without_ his armored suit on. “Loki is of Asgard, and it is _Asgard_ where I will resolve this!”

“Put your hammer down, Thor!” Another voice called out.

Tony flinched, surprised to find that Rogers and Bruce had somehow joined them; Banner looked like he might sneeze green any moment, but Cap was all decked out in the old-style pleated khakis Fury had managed to dig up for him, carrying his shield along for good measure.

“Captain!” Thor boomed in greeting, lowering the hammer. “I’m here to collect the Tesseract and Loki. _Both_ belong to Asgard and shall return with me.”

“Let’s talk reasonably about this,” Rogers added, a firm hand falling on Tony’s shoulder.

“Reasonably my _ass_ ,” Tony suddenly growled, twitching his nose as Loki’s distress became almost palpable in the air, a firm taste and texture he swore he could feel at the back of his throat. It made him nauseous, as though his airway was closing at the same moment his stomach rebelled. “Loki doesn’t belong _to_ Asgard. He’s already said he wants to stay here on Earth, Blondie, so he _stays_. I don’t know what’s so hard to grasp about that but—”

“You have _no right_!” Thor rumbled, lightning flashing outside. “Have care how you speak, mortal, or—”

“I’ll go.”

“What?” Tony wheezed, bringing a hand to his chest. “Loki, you don’t have to do this. You can stay. Remember?”

Loki lifted his chin, false bravado casually displayed, and Tony thought the taller man might faint if he lifted it any higher. “I said I’d go, Stark.”

Tony squared his shoulders, ready to argue, pretending his squeamish stomach wasn't churning uncomfortably as Loki's scent nose-dived into what on anyone else would smell like full-on panic.

The dark-haired Asgardian, however, stood there completely unaffected, examining his fingernails. As though nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Like he and Thor were discussing the weather.

It was no use. If Loki didn’t want to stay, didn’t _refuse_ to cooperate with Thor, there was nothing —well, nothing _legal_ — that Tony could do.

“Fine,” he muttered.

It felt like someone had ripped open his ribcage, and absently he rubbed at the sore spot, where his reactor sat a little too heavy against his sternum. Not like he’d grown to like the guy or anything. His sarcastic running commentary whenever he decided to join the engineer in the workshop had been distracting. He certainly wouldn't miss that strange sickly-sweet scent he’d sometimes, just sometimes, catch whiffs of when Loki’s wariness and fear had abated and the man allowed his eyes to train on his form, something soft crossing his features.

Fuck. Maybe he’d miss the prickly bastard after all.

* * *

It was weird, being in Central Park in a suit —an actual suit, light grey, Armani— with the rest of the Avengers. Weird and uncomfortable.

Tony fiddled with his tie for the millionth time as he watched the others. Rogers and Banner were hovering nearby, just behind his view, almost like they were hiding behind whatever angry alpha-scent Tony’s sure he’s giving off. Romanov and Barton were on the other side of the small plaza, gossiping like schoolgirls as they watched the proceedings from behind dark shades.

Loki and Thor were so close together that, even here in the cool spring breeze of early morning New York, the scent of the dark-haired man’s distress threatened to overpower Tony.

Telepathy. Right. It would take a while for him to get used to that.

(Except he wouldn't have to, because Loki was leaving.)

 _Guess it's a good thing SHIELD managed to clear the park for a few hours_ , Tony thought, thumbing his sleeve's edge. Wouldn’t want every alpha within a five block radius showing up and attacking Thor, after all. _That_ wouldn’t end very well.

Tony flipped off his shades, folding them into his pocket.

He’d tried to talk to Loki the night before, after the god’s surprise announcement. Tried to explain—again—how the laws worked. Hell, even Fury had called, offered Loki asylum then and there, if he’d just agree to consult for SHIELD.

Ha. Ha fucking ha.

What made this whole production even worse was that anyone with a working nose could tell—could actually _physically feel_ how frightened Loki was. How much he didn’t _want_ to go with Thor. But no one could do anything. Decisions had been made, no take-backs.

The Fabio-reject was nodding to them, as though they were fucking _friends_ or something, and Loki grabbed the other end of the Tesseract’s case.

Then everything was blue, blue and bright, and just like that, Thor and Loki had disappeared with the Tesseract, poof. Back to their castle in the sky—wait.

Was that...?

Among the dark spots burned into his retina, Tony managed to make out the form of Loki, standing there alone, his arm still in the dark blue sling around his shoulders.

The cool spring morning suddenly smelled like joy.

“Oops,” Loki said, grinning. “My hand must have slipped. I suppose I’m not as healed as Thor had hoped.”

* * *

The months that followed Loki’s slip from the proverbial noose were a blur of activity: Fury managed to get Loki’s asylum papers processed in record time, suddenly providing Loki with an ID and papers claiming his name was “Lucas Smith” or something as equally ridiculous. Pepper and the legal team had managed a permanent Section 135, so that no other agency or country harmed during the Battle of New York could seek claim. On the science front, Bruce had finally mapped enough of Loki’s brain and reactions to conclusively determine that Loki’s Ω-natured tendencies manifested as freaking telepathic signals that puny untelepathic mortal brains could only interpret as olfactory ones. What the fuck.

And if that wasn’t enough to weird Tony out, his constant shadow almost was.

Loki was _everywhere_. At first it was sort of funny to find the guy skulking in the back of workshop when Tony hadn’t been up to eat or sleep in a few days. But then he’d noticed something: whenever he did manage to join the others for meals or movies or whatever press conferences they were wanted at, Loki was always somewhere nearby. One time, after a particularly stressful meeting in Midtown, he’d even found the god hiding in the back of the car, apparently invisible to everyone but Tony, as Happy had no clue when he’d picked up another passenger.

It wasn’t until Banner created a portable, wearable brainwave monitor for the god that he figured out _why_ Loki had continued to follow Stark around the tower long after the threat of Thor and Asgard had disappeared. Turned out being around Tony somehow helped the god’s brain settle down, literally. Like he was the alien’s own personal pacifier. Which, awww. Wasn’t that cute.

Not that Tony minded much. After all, when he wasn’t leading alien invasions and spewing bullshit from his mouth, the guy was kinda... Well. Easy on the eyes.

Hot, even.

Just because his responses mimicked those of an omega on Earth didn’t mean Tony was naive enough to think the god swung that way, or, you know, was even _interested_ in swinging that way. Certainly not after what Thor had implied about Aesir mating habits…

But Tony could look. Boy could he ever _look_.

After that hollow ache in his chest had appeared when the god had first agreed to return to Asgard, Tony had thought that the terribly possessive feeling he’d gotten around the guy ever since was merely a byproduct of his α-nature. But it didn’t go away after Loki ditched the fam for his new gang. In fact, the more time he spent in Loki’s company —the longer they hung out in the workshop or sat together during movie night—, the stronger the ache in Tony’s sternum when they inevitably parted for the night.

But it would have to do. Or rather, there was nothing he _could_ do.

Besides, Tony had his own demons anyway. He couldn’t decide if it was lucky or not that Loki couldn’t smell his distress when the engineer had nightmares. Having to wake Loki from his own, tipping him out of distress with a gentle nudge and circled wrist, was bad enough.

There were moments when the guy’s eyes looked so haggard, so lost, that Tony wanted to pull him into his arms and never let go. But he didn’t. Because, you know. Reasons.

And some days, Loki just seemed so light and carefree, and it was like seeing a shadow of the man he'd once been, this funny, trickster character who teased and prodded and pranked without any real cruelty, who seemed to yearn so much for the laugher of those around him. His scent would take on a sweeter quality, something akin to the smell of springtime, of fresh cut flowers and daffodils or some shit. Those days were the hardest for Tony.

And so what if he caught the darker-haired man looking at him, sometimes. It didn’t mean anything.

It didn’t _mean_ anything.

Still. It was hard, watching as Loki slowly relaxed into life in the tower; as the days between his nightmares stretched into weeks; as he recovered, relearned how to laugh and joke with the mortals he’d found himself surrounded by; as he became more independent, spent more time on his own, even though the hollow ache in Tony’s chest remained.

* * *

(Time Magazine, August 27, 2012)

Aliens Among Us: Ten Questions with Tony Stark

_Imagine my surprise when I arrived at Stark Tower to interview its owner, only to find the Avengers wandering around his penthouse, along with Stark’s latest houseguest, the alien known as Lucas. While the mysterious agents Black Widow and Hawkeye disappeared from my (and my photographer’s) view moments later, this reporter certainly was not expecting to find Captain Rogers baking cookies in Stark’s penthouse kitchen. The open floorplan with staggering views of Manhattan could tend towards a certain coldness this time of year, against a gray December sky, but as I watch it is clear that Rogers and Lucas are comfortable, if not accepting, of one another’s presence. It was in the middle of this warm atmosphere, this strange camaraderie between the friendly man-out-of-time and the prickly newcomer, that I found myself wondering just what exactly happened during the Battle of New York less than six months ago._

_Enter Tony Stark. Fashionably late, the self-proclaimed genius, billionaire, playboy (though recent rumors would suggest otherwise) and alpha sweeps into the room like he owns the place (he does), stealing a cookie that Captain Rogers has just plated for himself before he turns his attention towards me._

_Ladies, the rumors are true. I’ve never experienced a billion-watt stare quite like Tony Stark’s, and some part of me deep down hopes I never do. Whoever the supposed Ω-natured or neutral individual is that has captured this man’s attention, I wish them luck because they’re going to need it. One gets the impression from Mr. Stark that he only rarely doesn't get his way, and generally plays for keeps._

_The interview starts with Mr. Stark_ (“Please, call me Tony”) _perching on the edge of his dark leather sofa while double-fisting two Stark Industries’ coffee mugs. Between sips, the billionaire proclaims that he hasn’t slept in two days, so Lucas is there to make sure he doesn’t say anything he will regret later. Apparently, the alien who has found a permanent home among the Avengers is something of a PR genius, Mr. Stark says._

_It’s difficult to get the man to focus, Lucas clarifies. He’s there to interpret for me, if I need it. Funny, I wouldn’t have thought Stark needed an interpreter, considering how many languages his wikipedia page says he is fluent in, but this reporter certainly isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Then the real fun begins._

**I have to ask, how is it with the Avengers all living here?**

_TS:_ It’s good. Steve makes cookies almost every week. And Brucie, his curry rivals the best in town.

_Stark pauses here to take a sip of coffee, his dark eyes lighting up with something resembling joy, before he continues._

_TS:_ But seriously, I like having everyone around, more than I thought I would, you know? I think it makes me feel more stable, safer knowing my team is protected; under my proverbial protection and literal roof, so to speak.

**Is that because you’re part of a team, now?**

_TS:_ I know what you want me to say. You’re wondering if this is some nature thing, like those studies on how alphas needed a so-called ‘pack’ in the 1800s. That theory went the way of phrenology, you know, and no one today would _ever_ suggest that a person’s skull shape determines their intelligence and worth. But you know what phrenology was based on? The same racist philosophies that defined other Darwin-inspired studies of that era. Did you know that some of the same naturalists who posited phrenology also thought that tribal societies would have more α-natured members than so-called ‘civilized’ western society? But the opposite was true, it turned out.

**Do you mean to say that your nature does not play any role in your involvement with the Avengers?**

_TS:_ Do I like being able to protect what’s mine, including my friends? Sure. Does that mean I joined the Avengers and created the Iron Man suit just to satisfy that urge? No. Iron Man is bigger than that. Bigger than me.

**Speaking of Iron Man, this year, 2012, was a big year for you. A lot happened. Yet you seem more at ease since the Battle of New York.**

_TS:_ I wouldn’t say at ease. We all have our demons. But I also think we all found something to unite us, you know? Something that made it easier for us to rally together afterwards.

**That’s very interesting. Many are curious about your newest houseguests, others say you and the other Avengers aren’t to be trusted, that your α-natured instincts are dominant among the team.**

_TS:_ That’s rich. Everyone always wants to blame it on natures. It’s ridiculous, no matter what I do. If I’m out having a good time, suddenly I’m on the prowl or _acting out_ as an alpha, like some sex-crazed addict or something. It was like that _before_ New York; now everyone just wants a piece because of what happened. I’ve seen news broadcasts where in the same breath the guy says that it was my α-natured tendencies that saved this city, yet alphas will ultimately destroy us all. It’s ridiculous, that’s what. Nobody is just their biology.

**You haven’t been on the party circuit recently… There are rumors, you know, that you’ve settled down.**

_TS:_ Yeah, well, there are always rumors. I’m Tony Stark. ( _Lucas clears his throat in the background, and Stark turns, offering the other man a grin._ ) Fine, fine. New York… it changed me. Changed all of us, I guess. It’s strange knowing that we’re not alone in the universe, of course. That aliens exist and all. But in some ways, knowing what’s out there, beyond this planet… well, it has helped to put the last few years in perspective. Given me a new focus.

**Speaking of the last few years, in every interview since your surprise debut as Iron Man, you’ve always refused to discuss what happened during the several months when you were presumed dead, when you disappeared after a short trip to Afghanistan.**

_Lucas leans forward now, sharp green eyes and angles; this reporter would be lying if she said it wasn’t intimidating_.

 _L:_ No comment. Next question.

**Alright. Recently, the Maria Stark Foundation invested heavily in a newly-formed research group, the Knowles Branch. Why?**

_TS:_ The Knowles Branch is looking at the differences between perception and reality in the different natures. It’s fascinating stuff. You know who you should ask about it? My buddy Bruce. He’s got some big study coming out later about it, all about pheromones and things. Not my area, of course, I like robots more, but did you know there has been less medical research into what creates and fuels an α-natured biological condition or response compared to women’s medical health issues? And let’s be honest, there’s not been a lot of research on women’s health issues, either.

**Does this have anything to do with the Section 135 protective order filed by your attorney last April?**

_It’s impossible to describe the change in the room when I pose this question. It seems as though Stark and Lucas are communicating, a silent exchange of glares and scoffs and eyerolls almost too quick to follow, before Stark is turning back towards me. His grin is feral, almost._

_TS:_ That’s a _very_ interesting question, especially since I was under the impression that my attorney also managed to have those court documents filed under judicial seal. But if you’ve managed to find out about it, others will as well, I suppose. I’ll only say this. Section 135 exists for very specific and very good reasons, and I support the work that the ACLU and others have done to recognize those reasons on a national and global level.

**Maybe one question for Lucas? Do you have natures where you are from? What’s your nature?**

_Stark interrupts before Lucas may respond._  
  
_TS:_ No comment. Thanks for coming, bye for now.

_And just like that the interview is over and Stark is out of the room, miraculously with a new cup of coffee in hand. Lucas sees me out, after a few of Captain Roger’s still-warm cookies; he is cordial but silent after offering his formal goodbyes._

_As the elevator returns me to the lobby, I can’t help but wonder about Earth’s resident alien, or the tower in which he resides. It’s amazing how little the world knows about such a public figure as Tony Stark._

* * *

“Stark.”

Tony twitched, looking up from his latest project.

There, on the edge of his desk, was Tall, Dark and Handsome, perched like a cat who’d eaten the canary. “Tell me something,” he almost purred.

 _Uh oh_ , Tony grimaced, spinning around in his chair. He couldn’t for all the coffee in the world think what he’d done to anger the god now. “Ask away, Buttercup.”

“The reporter—” Loki scowled, before schooling his features. “You didn’t tell her my nature on Midgard. Why?”

Tony exhaled, relieved. _This_ , he could handle. He could answer questions. He could talk about _this_. “It wasn’t her business, Lokes. She’s snooping for a story; it’d start all sorts of rumors that I don’t think you wanna mess with right now.”

The dark haired man looked away. A waft of distress came from him,  a heady scent of sadness under it, overwhelming whatever calm sweetness had existed earlier.

Tony winced. It was almost harder to ignore Loki’s scent, now that he knew from Bruce’s research that Loki’s actual _brain_ broadcasted the sensations that natured humans just interpreted as smells. It was like having a landline into Loki’s thoughts and, as cool as that sounded, it was decidedly _not cool_ when it made the inventor feel like barfing.

“So,” Loki huffed a moment later, moving to stand. “You are not interested.”

Tony couldn’t help it; he reached for the god’s wrist, letting his fingers circle around Loki’s pulse point.

Loki scowled at him, as his distress scent unwittingly fell away. He gestured to the wrist in Stark’s grasp with his free hand. “Did you not say that such uninvited actions by an alpha are considered _rude_ on Midgard?” he growled.

“Stay. Please.” Tony loosened his grasp, but the god didn’t pull away. “Talk to me.”

The god rolled his eyes, but let Stark pull him towards the workshop couch— _their_ couch. It was awkward, settling down into the cushions with Loki’s wrist still locked in his grasp, but they’d managed to only bump their knees a few times, before Tony released Loki’s arm.

“I—” Tony squeaked, coughing to clear his throat. “Uh. Maybe it would help if I began? I kind of have a reputation on Earth. In the media, that is. As a playboy, you know? A slut, basically. And if they knew you come across as an omega, well. It would start the rumor mill going, since you live here and there was that huge EW feature a few months ago about who is fucking who amongst the Avengers—I mean, come on, they think Nat’s an _alpha_ , how ridiculous of a story can they invent?”

“I remember the article,” Loki mumbled.

“Anyway,” Tony continued, “I—ah—got the impression from Thor that relationships between men are frowny-faced in Asgard? So I was trying to keep you out of the rumor circuit. And I wanted you to feel safe, you know. This is your home, Loki.”

Loki blinked, a perplexing mix of confusion and anger flitting across his features. It took Tony longer than he cared to admit, to realize that the scent, for once, was not unpleasant.  Nor did it carry the sickening sweetness of before, of those quiet times when the god had relaxed in Tony’s workshop, had let down his proverbial shields long enough to just _be_.

No, this was something more, something _different_. It held a promise, and just a hint of excitement.

“You mean,” Loki’s voice was low and threatening, like dancing on the edge of a knife. “You mean to tell me, that after all this time, after every hint I’ve leveled, after every time I let you hold my wrist after a nightmare, sat so close to you during your _movie_ nights that I could count the burn marks on your knuckles, that you’ve believed I was not _interested_ in more because of something that idiot _Thor_ said?”

Tony’s eyebrows rocketed up. Wow. “Well, when you put it that way…” He felt so _dumb_ right now.

“You _stupid_ mortal,” the god hissed, making a fist in Tony's shirt—

—and then he pulled him in for a kiss.

 _Oh_ , Tony’s brain kicked in once, twice, before letting the intoxicating scent and sensation overtake him. _Oh_ , he thought, _so that's what the smell was_.

Loki bit at his lips, bringing him back down to Earth, reminding him that something required his attention.

Grinning, Tony returned the nibble, just soft enough for it not to hurt — _I'm here, you have me_ , it said—and then he was kissing Loki, hand still wrapped around Loki's wrist.

 

**Author's Note:**

> *coughs*
> 
> So this originally began as a super secret surprise birthday present for [Horns-of-Mischief](http://horns-of-mischief.tumblr.com/). As in, we _literally_ started writing this in March for an April posting date. It _literally_ was supposed to only be 5K. It _literally_ was supposed to have a lot more smut involved. But damn it, things happened, life got in the way, some idiot *coughArvensiscough* signed up for a different bang in a different ship, more plot happened, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger, then someone *coughArvensiscoughcough* caught an embryo and spent two months not writing much less moving, and, well, here we are six months later. Ooops. 
> 
> (We are _literally_ very sorry for how late this is, but, um, happy half-birthday m'dear Horns? We're only a few weeks late for that, at least?)


End file.
